Six African Men

We were seated outside, my stool was sinking in the soft sand. I had to keep lifting and shifting it to the quiet amusement of my hosts. A warm breeze, a swarm of bees, birds chirping and my stool sinking into the ground and my host. Actually it is my hostess and her battalion, 3 teenage boys holding kalashnikovs lazily, pointing at me.

Let us go back to the beginning. I had been in this country for one week, in this remote town for 3 days. Am not superstitious at all, but I had been having ghost poop for a while and knew this visit would be fun. You know when nature calls and you answer, you sit and push then stand up to inspect the brown results and find nothing. Then you check under, around, the ceiling, nothing. The soft brown cake has swam away, too eager to join the rest at the water treatment plant out of town. You shake your head in amazement and flush to send away the lazy tissue that can't swim away on its own.

So in this small town, like all small towns in Africa, I need to know the big boys. Its always the bank manager, the doctor in charge of the local hospital and the illiterate man who owns a petrol station and a hardware shop and has a lorry. The old Irish priest, the headmaster of the school and head of the town’s police station. It was the same here and I knew them, and they knew me, we drank together in the illiterate rich man’s club everyday, all of us. Lager for all, but for the priest who drank single malt whiskey from his country. They’re all past 55 years old and treat me like a younger cousin they respect. I suspect the real reason they respect me is because I am Obama’s cousin. I have no idea why I told this lie, but to my credit, I made him my cousin when he was only a senator. Many other Kenyans made him a close relative only after he was sworn in.

The police chief would fill his mouth with lager, hold it for a few seconds then swallow. An annoying ritual by any standard, civilian or military. He sat with us, but didn’t really. His chair was always a little far away from the table, his back halfway to us, usually facing the entrance, or a window. It wasn’t really a window, strong sandy wind had forced the club to remove the glass and replace with bricks. So it was actually just a wall. He avoided eye contact, spoke little and had a very low threshold for jokes, often bursting into loud laughter when I repeated internet jokes. I once told them the old one, ‘if we take a bath to be so fresh and so clean clean, how come towels get dirty?’ (I wish they spoke Kiswahili, it sounds much better in Kiswahili). I said this at those rare times when he was facing me, and his mouth was full of beer when he laughed out loudly. Ai ai ai.

The Irish priest was sipping Irish whiskey, he smiled loudly, wrinkling his old face. He stopped his glass half way to his mouth and I knew he had a story to tell. I think he was laughing loudly on the inside at the cop’s beer that now was all over me rather than at my joke. The Irish priest is good company since he is a good story teller and full of humour told with a faded Irish accent. I have never heard him talking about his church. He is big, like an ex-heavy weight champion and full of practical jokes too. He once filled the cop’s glass with whiskey. Luckily this time shy cop was facing the door when he spat.

The rich unschooled chap was the real story teller. He was put on earth to talk and took this task with seriousness. He took himself and everything else too seriously. He was a topic stealer, any thing you say, he takes it over and explains it. You don’t know these things, let me tell you. He knew everything this man.

The bank manager had managed this branch for 30 years. He was always complaining about something but always optimistic. ‘This government is useless, power cuts, power cuts every day. But I think from next year things will be better’

The rich man picked the topic and went away with it. ‘Power? You people don’t know the whole story Eh. Why do you think the president went to the US? Eh? It was for the safety of our security’ He used words like that, safety of security, move towards progress. He once observed, in an enlightened moment, that women make better mothers than men, ‘you see us men, we don’t have breasts, how would we breast feed babies? Eh?’ He also observed correctly that men have rough voices that wouldn’t be very effective at soothing a distressed baby.

The doctor told me he is a vet. Humans are just animals he would explain. Infact medical doctors have it easy since humans can explain in detail how and where they are sick he would say. I made a mental note not to fall sick in this town.

The head teacher was a colourless character who called everyone by their surname. Mr. Marwa. The rest never called each other by name. You would know they are talking to you when they look at you. Most of the time they just talked at everyone and no one. To themselves.

That’s what we do, humans, we talk to ourselves in the presence of others. We like good listeners, someone who listens and says very little, someone to hear us talk to ourselves.

I’ll talk about the rebel another day. Am tired.